Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people from San Francisco

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. - Mailer Diablo 22:25, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of people from San Francisco[edit]

Delete as it is a list that would become unmanageable and never ending. WP is not a list of indisriminate information. Prod removed with a tag added to the talk page stating, "This article is part of a WikiProject to improve Wikipedia's articles related to California." Content could be moved to the San Francisco article. Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 22:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete per nom. This is what we have Category:People from San Francisco for. --LambiamTalk 22:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as perfect example of what should be a category. Dark Shikari talk/contribs 22:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Lambiam. ViridaeTalk 22:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The purpose of a list is to supply additional information beyond simply names. This list will do that. It is currently underpopulated because I am going through the effort of verifying the name of every individual added to this list, as well as others, as per wikipedia guidelines. Also, as the list grows, it will be clearly obvious that it could NOT be added to the San Francisco page without making that page itself unbearably huge. And, yes, the proposer of this deletion did make the exact same comments earlier. Evidently, s/he did not read the reply I posted then, which contained substantially the same information as this statement. MAYBE he will now. Similar lists for other major cities already exist, and there is no reason to think that San Francisco should not receive the same level of attention and respect as those other major cities. Badbilltucker 16:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - as the "proposer of this deletion", yes I made very similar statements in my prod listing as I did in this AfD nomination -- the reason does not change simply because the prod was removed. The statement that I "did not read the reply" is true, not because I did not want to, but because I could not find it; I would assume it would have been on Talk:List of people from San Francisco or my own talk page but it is not. If you direct me to it, "MAYBE" I will be able to!--Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 19:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - The wikipedia is not about specific individual posters, such as possibly the poster above, getting in a hissy-fit because their own self-importance is not recognized by others. The poster states that he himself has only been on wikipedia for approximately a month. He would thus not be aware of the huge number of similar lists, many of which are completely unreferenced, which already exist, and which this self-styled "deletionist" has NOT challenged. If he can contain his comments to the matters at hand, I think that we would all be very appreciative. Badbilltucker 20:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We have both been rather uncivil to each other; perhaps we can both just step back and let the AfD process run its course.--Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 20:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC) -----> I guess that did not work. [1] --Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 13:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Use the category Category:People from San Francisco for this purpose. Let's get rid of this and all other similar lists. --Richard 06:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stong Delete redundant to category. Eluchil404 22:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. Categories don't annotate. This list is incomplete but that is easily corrected. And if the list gets too big, it can be broken down into separate articles. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 16:13, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Lists and categories both have their place. This list is properly annotated and is a good branch from the main article San Francisco. --Dystopos 16:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, expand, and reorganize. As a purely alphabetical list, it would be redundant to a category on the same topic. However, if expanded so that each entry in the list explains what the individual's connection is to the locality, and organized in a meaningful manner, there is no redundancy; see List of people associated with Albany County, New York and List of people associated with Columbus, Ohio for my attempts at this. If all you have is a locality category, you have people who were born in a city but left it as a young child lumped in indiscriminately with people whose very reason for having an article is strongly tied to that city. Also, organizing chronologically helps turn the list into a history of the people of a place rather than a mere list of trivia or local vanity. Postdlf 16:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This isn't a particularly good list of people from a city, but that's for the editors to improve. There are many lists like these on several city pages, and they need to stay on their own page, otherwise the city pages will get too long. Its not like people are going to be able to click on to a category of people from San Francisco on the main San Fran page, because it wouldn't apply to the city, nor could they type in "List of people from San Francisco" in the search and find the information they wanted if it was a category. If they wanted a category they would have to track it down from a notable resident or something. For ease of information, a separate page linked to the main one is preferable. Vertigo700 16:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, lists of notable residents are a common feature of city pages on wikipedia. for larger cities, which tend to have a larger number of notable residents, it makes sense for organizational reasons to make such lists seperate articles. If this specifric list is a mess, by all means clean it up. But please do not set a precedent that would imperil the many similar and by and large useful lists across wikipedia. Justinpwilsonadvocate 16:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. These People from ... lists are useful for researchers and writers delving into a particular city. The article format allows a more intuitive, resoned and organic (like the human mind) flow to these articles rather than the alphabetical lists of categories. Davodd 16:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: This page has only been in existence since last week. If the vote is for the page to continue to exist, this list and other lists of people from given cities will continue to be my top priority of development and expansion. Badbilltucker 17:13, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Richard. If you're worried about adding a description, that's what the article of the person listed is for. Else, why bother listing the person? --KHill-LTown 17:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Although this particular list is pretty shabby, here's an example of one that is better implemented: List of notable Nashvillians. I agree that such lists are difficult to maintain, and for a city as large as San Francisco they are probably pointless unless specifically limited to natives (people born in the city). Kaldari 17:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per Justinpwilsonadvocate and Davodd. Squamate 18:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Annotated lists are valuable. Powers 20:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, useful. (Though IMO where such list articles really show their value over categories is when they display red links of articles we still need.) -- Infrogmation 21:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. A regular Wikipedia visitor should not be forced to view categories, which can be confusing for a newbie.- -newkai t-c 23:05, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I really don't see a problem, require a source for each person and it's fine. There are plenty of lists on Wikipedia that will never be complete. --Liface 23:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Violates WP:NOR as attaches 'importance' to 'persons listed' as a subset of all articles in WP on persons from that place (or born in that place, a criterion that is not / will never be met by all the lists. Annotation suffers a similar fate). Categories, on the other hand, at least in my mind, are content-neutral and AUTOMATICALLY MAINTAINED. all of them, which is to say where is the verifiable source that these is an agreed upon list of notable/famous/important/persons people from that location. Also delete all the other lists in Category:Lists of people by U.S. cities, arghh look at List of famous people from Baltimore AND List of people from Baltimore, pending merge). The discussion on deleting the rest of the pages should move to a policy discussion (should as in I don't know how to start it). Cheers --Clappingsimon talk 23:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • If I may extend your argument, no one should attempt to author any article on Wikipedia, because it might violate WP:NOR by attaching importance to the thing written about at the expense of something not yet written about. Categories may be more "content neutral" (though I don't really agree), but they are also more "content impoverished". The proper course of action for an incomplete article is its expansion, not its deletion. --Dystopos 23:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Um, the "important" persons from that location are simply everyone who as individuals merit an article. Think of it as implicitly titled "List of people from San Francisco who have or should have Wikipedia articles." This is hardly radical here. Postdlf 01:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, my extension was facetious, but it aptly illustrates my argument. In any case, I have made some changes to List of people from San Francisco to demonstrate how a list can become much more informative than a category. The subject is of interest to readers and the information will not be handled well by the alternatives given here (deletion, inclusion in San Francisco, or reference to Category:People from San Francisco). The editors' time would be better used expanding the article rather than defending it. --Dystopos 01:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now pare the 200 pages of entries in the category down to a manageable list of Notable San Francisco people. I would expect several thousand individuals to be listed. Cheers --Clappingsimon talk 01:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have mistaken the number of entries for the number of pages. There are less than 400 entries in Category:People from San Francisco. It is more important that the list be informative and useful than manageable. --Dystopos 02:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oops, yes, my mistake. Well summarise and categorise all 400 then. This Google search 'site:en.wikipedia.org "People from San Francisco" +musician' shows 22 musicians who should be listed - is that different from what the list will achieve? Cheers --Clappingsimon talk 02:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're really worried about this size issue, aren't you? I suggest you look around Wikipedia to see the variety of list articles and how size is dealt with. But be careful, List of people by name might give you a heartattack. Postdlf 03:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. I'm not. Just set some rules for inclusion and exclusion. If it's to be all inclusive, make it so. Still believe I'm better off doing my own research, now I've worked out how to search for multiple categories. Cheers --Clappingsimon talk 03:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • No one has said that the list should NOT be made more inclusive. That's what we do here on Wikipedia. The issue before us is deletion. Talk:List of people from San Francisco is the place for suggestions about article improvement. --Dystopos 03:55, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Dystopos as this is a well annotated and quality list worthwhile of inclusion. Yamaguchi先生 21:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Agree with most of what was said. Yes, the information is redundant from the category, but if the page is well-organized, annotated, and updated regularly, I don't see a problem. Ellipsis22 20:34, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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